


He's Trying So Hard

by viksherenqueer



Category: Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Car Accidents, F/M, M/M, Past Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Trans Dadsona (Dream Daddy), dead spouses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-28
Updated: 2017-08-28
Packaged: 2018-12-20 23:55:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11932008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viksherenqueer/pseuds/viksherenqueer
Summary: Robert Small is genuinely trying to get better, and after some convincing from his daughter, he decides to begin seeing a therapist. Said therapist suggests that the two of us clear the air on the whole dead spouse thing. Sounds like a genuinely shitty idea, but okay.





	He's Trying So Hard

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanted you guys to know that while putting in the tag "car accident" ao3 suggested "sex on a car" and "sex WITH a car" to me. whos writing lightning mcqueen fanfic. fucking fess up to it.  
> (also disclaimer im a garbage proofreader. also ive never written robert before so i apologize if hes kinda weird lmao)

He looked so lost for words, sunken back into the cushions of my couch. He wanted to shut down, to stop talking, but he was trying his hardest to avoid doing just that. “I, uh. Shit, okay, so Val told me she wanted me to start seeing a therapist, so that is a thing I’m doing.” 

I pause, trying to imagine Robert laying on one of those chaise lounge chairs, spilling his guts to a professional with a clipboard. That’s not what therapy is actually like, but movies have engrained that imagery into my brain. “How’s that going?”

“She hates me, I think.” Robert snorts, moving to brush a hand back through his hair. “I guess the thrilling tail I spun about watching my parents getting murdered by the Irish mob when I was seven wasn’t really her thing. At least, not after I told her I was fucking with her. She follows up everything I say with ‘Did that really happen?’”

I can’t help but stifle a laugh, biting my lip. “Yeah, therapy is… Something else. Part of me wishes I never gave it up. I’d probably have my shit together by now.”

“You went to therapy?” Robert’s brows arch, and he’s clearly trying to analyze every detail he knows about me like he could decipher exactly what the therapist and I talked about. 

“Yeah. Well, it was technically more of grief counseling, and I was… Required to do so.” I make a face, and it feels like the tables have turned. Now I’m the one uncomfortably sinking into the couch, trying to find the right words to say. 

Robert laces a quick arm around my shoulders, and I rest against his side in silence. “One time after a court charge I was required to take anger management classes.”

I scoff, taking in the scent of his cologne. “What? Did you spray paint the phrase ‘Bush did 9/11’ on a public building or something?” He laughs against my hair, and I take his free hand in both of mine and examine his scars for a moment. “I, um. After Alex died I was…. I was completely useless, honestly. Like I wouldn’t get out of bed for days at a time. And I barely ate. And Amanda mentioned it to her grandparents and… They threatened to take her away from me if I didn’t get my shit together.”

“Holy shit,” Robert mutters, obviously unsure of what to say. “That’s…. Really shitty.”

“I was so mad at them at the time but… At the same time, my fourteen-year-old was the one taking care of me. It wasn’t right. It was months of her doing the grocery shopping and making sure the bills got paid and making sure I ate. Amanda was just a kid, and she had just lost her father, and I was… The worst support system in the universe for her, basically. Alex was gone and I… Felt like I lost myself for a few months, and I’m sure Amanda felt the same.” Shit, my eyes sting. I release Robert’s hand to reach up and rub at my eyes. “I can’t help but look back and think about the times I used to get jealous over how close Alex and Amanda were, and now it’s like… I would give anything to watch them have a conversation about something I don’t understand again.” Andddddd, I’m crying. 

Robert shifts against me, pulling me closer into his chest and running a hand down my back. He’s not used to this, but he’s trying. “Y’know I uh. I mentioned you to my therapist. Well, ‘us’ I guess. And she pulled the whole, ‘well you guys have dead spouses in common’ card. And she said we should talk about it. And my initial instinct is to absolutely not fucking do that, but, well, changing is a grueling bullshit process of doing things I’m uncomfortable with. Sorta makes me miss my old process. It was a lot easier downing a pint of Jack and knife-fighting my own emotions in the back alley of the Taco Bell. But this is supposed to be better for me. So, want to just. Trade stories I guess?”

I had never really talked about Alex to anyone besides Amanda before, so the idea put me a little on edge. Still, Robert’s therapist thought this was a good idea and helping him with his ability to properly process emotions was a good thing. And honestly, I think it would probably be a good idea to just get this sad shit out of the way. Starting a new relationship with a couple dead spouses in the not-so-far past wasn’t exactly the way to get off on the best footing.

“I met Alex in high school,” I start. “A couple of my friends and I had put together a ska band, The Skammunist Manifesto.” Robert lets out a rough little chuckle at that. I came up with the name, and I will always be so fucking proud of it. “I was a subpar keyboard player, and we had a couple subpar band members on wind instruments, and a guitarist who only knew how to play Hot Cross Buns. We needed a vocalist, so we hung up a few flyers around school. Next thing we know Alex is showing up at my friend Jay’s garage, asking if he could audition. He was new at school, and none of us knew anything about him, but we let him try. Guy had more talent in one bone in his body than the other five of us combined.”

“I’m not sure that’s much of a compliment,” Robert snarks, and I pinch him. “What? You guys sound like you were pretty awful.”

“Oh we were, but we were having fun. And for some reason, even after hearing how awful we were, Alex still wanted to join us. He had grown up singing in his church choir, and… He could hit high notes and sound like an angel.”

“Our stories start very differently,” Robert snorts, moving to dig around in his pocket until he found a beat up soft pack and plucked a cigarette from it. He lit up, taking a long drag and blowing smoke out of his nostrils before speaking again. “Well, not totally I guess. I also met Marilyn in high school. Private school, actually. Catholic private school.”

“No fucking way.”

“Yup,” Robert snorted, shaking his head. “My parents weren’t really religious, but it was the school that the rich people sent their kids to when they wanted to get rid of them. I was always good at getting in trouble, but Marilyn… She was sneaky. She caught me smoking under the bleachers once and told me that if I could regularly hook her up with cigarettes I could tell everyone I got to second base with her.” He couldn’t help but laugh at that, taking another long puff. “I was sixteen and my dick controlled all my thoughts, so of course I said yes. 

“We quickly evolved from black market cigarettes to sneaking off campus to get drunk and try to score some pot. She was a small thing, with blonde pin up curls and a cross around her neck. Dudes in alleys used to laugh at her when she tried to score with them. I almost couldn’t blame them. She looked like a good little church girl.

“When school ended, they didn’t want her to have anything to do with me. I remember climbing her drainpipe to get into her room most nights. Her maid caught us a few times, and we had to bribe her to keep quiet. 

“The summer ended eventually, and she was off to school. I signed up for the military,” I give a skeptical look, but he shushes me. “Yeah, I actually was in the military. Never got officially deployed off to war or anything, but I did what they asked. And every free moment I had I spent sneaking into Marilyn’s dorm room. 

“Before she could finish school, she got pregnant. I got honorably discharged and we moved in with my parents since hers were too pissed to deal with me. Alright, your turn.” Robert finished up his cigarette, leaning forward to snub it out in the ash tray I kept on my coffee table specifically for him.

“Damn, alright, where was I?” I have to gather myself for a moment, before taking a deep breath. “Alex and I became close friends for the rest of high school. Spent a lot of nights in Jay’s garage practicing and sleeping on his living room floor because neither of us really liked the idea of going home. 

“When we graduated, we were basically inseparable that whole summer. I remember on my birthday in July, he got us a bottle of foreign rum and we got drunk and fell asleep in a field that night. Woke up torn apart by mosquitos, but it had been the best birthday of my life. 

“When time for college came around, we promised we would write eachother. And we did for a bit, but… Life gets in the way, y’know? Exams and friends and a little bit of everything just sorta buts in. I met Craig and he became my best friend and… For a while, there were nights where I didn’t even think about Alex. 

“Senior year eventually came around, and I decided to go home for Christmas. Most years I had stayed at school through the holidays, and honestly, I’m not really sure what possessed me to go home for the break. But I did, and… It sucked. A lot. My overbearing aunt came over and drank too much and preached too much and my father ignored everything and my mother was miserable. So, I went where I used to when I didn’t want to be home. Jay’s garage. Him and his parents had gone on a trip for the holiday, but he never locked the garage door. I just… I didn’t expect to open it and find Alex lounging on the old couch in there. And he stared at me and I stared at him and… It was like it hit me all at once. But I didn’t want to be like ‘oh yeah, forgot I was in love with you, sorry’ and he didn’t know what to say and… So, we ended up sitting in Jay’s garage for the rest of the night. And he had a bottle of peppermint schnapps and we drank so much and just. Talked about college all night. And at some point, we had started kissing and… That was that. I almost didn’t want to go back to school, but we each only had a few months to finish up. So, we did. And then we scraped together all of our savings and got an apartment together.”

I take a deep breath, reaching forward to grasp my mug from the coffee table, taking a long sip of lukewarm coffee. “Okay, your turn again.”

“Well, Marilyn was pregnant and neither of us were really ready for a kid. We were both only twenty-one, and spoiled out of our minds. We had no fucking clue what we were doing. I thought maybe we’d feel different when Val was born, y’know. Like the parental feelings would just sorta show up and we’d know what to do. But they didn’t. She was born and we were lost. My parents paid for a nanny and I worked and it stayed that way for…. A little while. Not long. Marilyn and I just… Weren’t done our adventures. So we left Val in my parents hands a lot, running out and getting in trouble. I joined a cult for a while, did a small stint in prison, got into a lot of stupid bar fights with strangers that could’ve been easily avoided. Marilyn got into drugs, while I was getting into knife fights.

“When Val was ten, Marilyn and I both agreed that Brooklyn was just… Not the place to be. So we ended up here in Maple Bay. Thought a clean start would be best. Marilyn said we had to cut back on the sauce, so we did. I mellowed out for a good year or so, but… It was a rough year. Marilyn and I didn’t have much in common when we weren’t fucked up, so it was like… Trying to date someone all over again. I loved her, but it was a really shitty feeling when I realized I wasn’t in love with her. It was even shittier when I’d find myself staring at other people, other guys, and realizing how stagnant I felt just existing with Marilyn. Things had always been so fast paced with her that I never really had to think about anything, and it was like everything caught up to me at once. I was in my thirties, married, had a kid, and this was going to be the rest of my life. And that should’ve been fine, but I’m fucked in the head so for some reason it wasn’t and I started drinking again. 

“Marilyn ignored it for a while, since I was functioning. I went to work, and I made sure bills got paid and Val always made it to her school events and… Marilyn and I weren’t happy, but it was working. Until suddenly it wasn’t. I got laid off and Marilyn got sick and… And I started overdoing it. I drank too much, and I lost track of everything. I never had a temper with her or Val, but… I was just kind of empty, for a long time. The longer it lasted, the more I felt like Marilyn hated me. When Val was sixteen, Marilyn was in an accident. Her health was already bad, and… She didn’t make it to the hospital. She died hating my guts, and I can’t blame her.” Robert huffs loudly, shifting uncomfortably in his spot. He fumbles, lighting another cigarette and sucking half of it down in one huff. Replacing one vice for another wasn’t effective, but I wasn’t about to lecture him on the dangers of smoking. “Your turn.” He finally manages, looking at me. “What happened after you guys got your apartment?”

It takes me a minute to figure out where to start, finally managing to gather my thoughts. “It was… The freest either of us had felt in a long time. We barely had enough money to manage and sometimes we didn’t have power or running water, but… We were happy. Alex would break out his guitar and sing and we would eat cheap pizza and we both were working so much but… Every free moment was spent together. And after a while, we steadied out. We had a savings and were stable and… I felt comfortable telling him I wanted to transition.”

“Transition? Into what?” Robert inquires, and I sort of feel a pang of anxiety after realizing I had essentially outed myself in the middle of a story. 

“Well… Into a guy.” Robert pauses for a moment, seeming to process that. 

“Damn. I… Had no idea.” 

“If I have to thank my dad for anything, it’s the fact that he’s so hairy. After a while on testosterone I was passing. Didn’t matter if my voice wasn’t right yet, people saw body hair and just assumed I was a guy.” I snort, trying to read Robert’s expression. His arm slips back around me and I feel a little relieved. Still, this is a conversation I’d rather have later.

“Anyway, that became a thing. And his parents definitely didn’t like it. They never really liked me, but after that they just… Alex and them couldn’t talk about me without arguing, basically. So they didn’t talk. For a while. Until I got pregnant, anyway.” Everything about being pregnant had sucked, and I had hated every dysphoria-inducing moment of it. But Amanda had made everything so worth it. 

“When Amanda was born… I was scared. I was very scared. I wasn’t good at being responsible for myself, much less this tiny, vulnerable human. But Alex just… Was so calm. So happy and so calm. Amanda was everything we could have ever asked for, and I didn’t know it yet.

“Alex’s parents would come over a lot now, because honestly we needed a babysitter while Alex and I both worked. It was… Pretty awful, considering they were still deadnaming me and…” I huff, deciding to pass that part of the conversation. “When Alex got in a good place with his job, he told me I could quit my job if I wanted and stay home with Amanda. And… Well, I’ve never been a high-functioning human being. Working so much had been hard on me, so I did quit. I stayed home with Amanda and… It was great. I remember how much I cried when she started kindergarten because I couldn’t spend every moment of the day with her anymore.

“Amanda and Alex had this bond that just… Blew my mind. I used to be so jealous over how much she trusted him. I mean, she always loved me. But… part of me always thought she was closer to Alex. Like he was her favorite. It was silly, but still. 

“I remember once when Amanda was eleven, she had come home crying, and I hadn’t been there. Alex had come home early that day, and caught her sobbing when she came home. Apparently some kid on the school bus had lodged some chewing gum in Amanda’s hair while she had napped, and her friend had told her she was gonna have to cut it all off. Her hair was super long back then, and she was really attached to it. Alex tried to get the gum out, but finally he decided to get a hairdresser to take a look at it. The stylist tried to salvage what she could, but eventually informed them that she was gonna have to cut off most of Amanda’s hair. Now Amanda was in hysterics at this point, but wasn’t going to fight the stylist, right? Well, Alex had always had long hair. And the most beautiful curls. I spent so much time braiding his hair. It was… One of my favorite of his physical features. Well, after Amanda’s hair cut was finished, she was pretty devastated. At least until Alex came over, after having another one of the hairdressers chop off all his hair. Amanda… Thought it was the coolest thing ever. He just wanted to prove to her that it was just hair, and it wasn’t that important. It would grow back. But Amanda… She didn’t grow her hair back out for years.” I remember how much I had mourned Alex’s curls. The lesson he taught Amanda was valuable, but god, those beautiful, priceless curls…

“...Amanda was fourteen, and Alex had left the previous night for some business meeting he had in the next state over. It wasn’t anything huge, and I didn’t think anything of it. Until… Well, he wasn’t responding to my texts. And every time he was away from home, he’d call me before bed and we’d talk about our days and… He didn’t call, and I was panicking. Amanda was already in bed, but I couldn’t sleep. I was up all night. I was up when Amanda went to school the next morning and I still couldn’t get ahold of him. About an hour after Amanda left, there was a knock at the door. And… I had this horrible sinking feeling in my stomach and…” I have to catch myself, feeling tears well up in my eyes. I swallow, taking a long, deep breath. “The roads had been icy the last few nights, and Alex had hit a bad patch of ice going down a bit of an incline and… His car had spun out. They said he probably died quickly and that he didn’t suffer.

“I, um… I didn’t tell Amanda for almost three days. She would ask when dad was gonna call and I would tell her he was busy because I didn’t know how to tell my fourteen-year-old daughter that her father wasn’t coming home and…” My voice is cracking by his point, and Robert’s hand is rubbing firm circles against the lower part of my back. “It was a nightmare. And… Amanda held it together for me. She’s always held it together for me. She’s… My reason for living, honestly. I don’t understand how she held it together as well as she did. She’s so much stronger than I am. She’s… The spitting image of her father, in every way. The way she talks, her smile, her laugh. I see so much of him in her.”

It’s quiet for a long few minutes, and I’m really thankful for that. It’s just the sound of my sniffles, and Robert’s breathing, and his hands on my shirt. It takes me a few minutes to calm down, but once I do I properly wrap myself around Robert. “So… Do you think this helped?”

“It was so fucking sad,” Robert finally says, sounding a little exasperated and I can’t help but laugh. 

“That’s the point of therapy. To talk about sad stuff and get it out of your system.”

Robert nods a bit, making a face and moving to readjust us on the couch. We lay down, and I snuggle my head into the crook of his neck. “It’s totally fucking over my bad boy image, though.”

“Emotionally vulnerable bad boys are actually my biggest turn-on.” I mutter against the bottom part of his ear, and grin. “That’s not even a joke. Seriously give me any movie with a bad boy who has some emotional shit. He’s instantly my favorite.”

“The sad bad boy is such a garbage cliché, though.”

“Robert, you are a sad bad boy.”

He snorted, tilting his head back to stare at the ceiling for a long moment.

“Did you actually join a cult, though?” I finally inquire, running a hand over the cool leather of a lapel on his jacket.

“Yeah,” Robert scoffed. “Thought it would be cool. Kinda sucked. Guess I’m not really a ‘drink the Kool-Aid’ kinda guy.”

After a moment of silence I cannot resist myself from whispering “Oh yeah!” It’s the worst possible Kool-Aid man impression. Robert is trying not to laugh. He’s trying so hard. Alex, wherever you are, be proud of my shitty jokes.

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this at 3am and had no idea where it was going but tbh i just wanted to write abt alex bc i love him. @ddadds team: yall i wanna date alex's ghost. make it happen. halloween dlc.


End file.
